FILE - In this Jan 14, 2009 file photo, Johannes Mehserle, right, appears in the East Fork Justice Court in Minden, Nev. A judge has agreed to move the trial for the former transit officer charged in the killing of an unarmed man. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson ruled Friday, Oct. 16, 2009 the murder trail of Mehserle will be moved out of Oakland, Calif. The 27-year-old Mehserle is charged with the shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station on New Year's Day. (AP Photo/Cathleen Allison, File)

Photo: Cathleen Allison, AP

FILE - In this Jan 14, 2009 file photo, Johannes Mehserle, right,...

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** FILE **This undated family file photo provided by the Law Offices of John Burris shows Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old transit rider who was shot and killed by BART police on New Year's Day, 2009. A Douglas County jail official confirmed that 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle, who was involved in the incident, was in custody Tuesday night, Jan. 14, 2009, under a fugitive warrant issued in California (AP Photo/Family Handout provided by the Law Offices of John Burris) ** NO SALES **

The former BART police officer accused of murdering an unarmed train rider early New Year's Day will be tried in downtown Los Angeles, a judge ruled Thursday.

Judge Morris Jacobson's decision, after an hour and a half of arguments in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, was a blow to attorneys for Johannes Mehserle. They had sought a move to more conservative San Diego County.

It elated family members of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old Hayward man whom Mehserle shot during an arrest. They had disagreed with Jacobson's ruling that Mehserle, 27, could not get a fair trial in Alameda County because of widespread publicity and the specter of violent protests.

"I think I can get justice for Oscar in Los Angeles," said Cephus Johnson, Grant's uncle.

Grant family attorney John Burris called the ruling "the most important decision that will be made in this case other than the verdict." If the case had been sent to San Diego County, Burris said, "Mehserle would have walked."

The judge chose Los Angeles County despite a trial backlog there. Court officials have said they cannot accommodate the case and its demands on security for six months to a year, while San Diego County would have been ready by January.

Defense attorney Michael Rains focused on the delay, saying Mehserle, who resigned from BART shortly after the killing and is free on bail, needed to put the case behind him.

But Jacobson countered that the defense could at any time assert its right to a trial within 60 days.

Citing the reaction to the 1991 police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, Rains also argued that the trial could drag that city back in time, and into "the boiling cauldron we wanted to get out of in Alameda County."

Prosecutor David Stein suggested that the rioting that followed the officers' acquittal in the King case might have been avoided had the case been heard in a county similar to Los Angeles, instead of the relatively white, conservative Ventura County.

Jacobson did not explain his ruling in detail but said it was based on a number of factors, including the cost of the move and whether the counties were similar to Alameda demographically. They both are, he said.

Jacobson said he would ask California Chief Justice Ronald George to assign another judge to preside over the trial.

Mehserle shot Grant in the back at Oakland's Fruitvale Station while arresting him after a fight on a train. Other passengers filmed the shooting, and the footage has been seen by millions of people on the Internet and on television.

Through his attorneys, Mehserle said he had intended to subdue Grant with a Taser and accidentally fired his service pistol.

Race was again a key topic during Thursday's arguments. Mehserle is white and Grant was black, leading some people to see the case as representative of a pattern of police abuse of young men of color.

Stein called the case's racial component "undeniable." He said that for the verdict to be considered legitimate, the jury should include African Americans.

Legal experts said jurors in San Diego are more pro-police than their counterparts in Los Angeles. Neither Stein nor Rains said they were looking for a jury that was more likely to favor their side, but Burris said that's exactly what was going on.